Leon Uris (62 page)

“Now, you listen to me, Doctor.”

“You can call me Doctor. I don’t scare you, do I, Landers?”

“How’s a man standing on his feet for twenty hours saving lives going to scare anyone?”

“But that’s the point, old man. I’ve spent an entire lifetime making myself
feared
,” he growled. “I don’t have any friends. I never did. Precision surgery was always my credential for respect. Alexandria was a puff of pastry. In a month I was the only surgeon there good enough to take out the plumbing of the officers’ wives.”

“Well, you’re making up for lost time here.”

“Here? I came to Gallipoli for the wrong reason. What are we eating? It’s good.”

“Some of the General’s caviar. What’s so good about this stuff?” I pondered.

“Well…let me think…it’s better than bully beef.”

“Shit is better than bully beef.”

“Bully beef is shit,” he said. “Speaking of shit. How are Dr. Modi’s bowels these days?”

“He’s chipper as a baby.”

I was never that partial to wine, but I must say it was bestowing its benefits on both of us.

“Bet you can’t wait to get back to Christchurch after the war,” I said, knowing what I was leading into.

“Not going back,” he said.

“London, then. A top-of-the-line clinic.”

“I’m staying in the Army, Landers. I’ve done too many things for the wrong reasons in my life. We’re going to come into a lot of new medicine before this thing is over. I’d like to do another tour of duty to help put some of these lads on their feet and make their lives more livable. How’s that for the old hippopotamus oath?”

“A lot of thinking changes out here, doesn’t it?”

“Thank God for that,” he said.

I told myself, “Rory, get a grip. He’s getting too drunk.” What the hell, I’ve seen him either drunk or out on his feet and snap out of it in a blink and go on to operate on twenty more men without a mishap.

“You’ve no wife, Landers.”

“No.”

“But you’ve a sweetheart of a sweetheart.”

“In actual fact, when I left home, the future was so far away I decided to leave New Zealand without commitments.”

“I did, too,” Norman said, “but it was the worst decision I ever made.”

“But you’ve a wife,” I blurted.

“Second wife. Brigadier Christian Holiday’s widow. Decent sort.”

“But you’ve no wife in New Zealand?”

“Noooo. I was divorced by the most lovely, quick-witted, capable woman any man could wish for. We were actually divorced six months before the war started. I knew I’d be heading back to the Army, what with my reserve commission. Georgia-that was her name-was decent enough to keep the divorce secret to protect my professional standing. I was a lecher, you see. She let me remain in our house until I went off to the Army…and I decided to make my mark in Alexandria…and I did. Brigadier Christian Holiday’s widow is a decent sort, good career move for me…. I’m talking too much….”

“Not at all, sir.”

“Feels rather a relief to be able to speak about it. My
Ghurka lads wouldn’t understand, what? I was a rotter, Landers, driven to try to have sex with every woman I came upon.”

“But…this Georgia woman…”

“Ah, Georgia.”

“Didn’t you ever write again to her?”

“I wrote once to ask for a chance and she wrote back inferring that she had found the love of her life and would probably be leaving New Zealand. Oh Landers, do keep this hush-hush. Bernice Holiday is a decent sort.”

We were interrupted by a barrage that nearly shook us out of the shelter. From the sharpness of the explosions I guessed it was from mortar rounds.

“Cripes!” someone from outside called, “they got the Red Cross tent!”

We were sure glad as hell to see June over and done with, but July was no better. Until now, few among us believed we would get out of this alive.

Changes were happening that did not bode well. Our conditions continued to deteriorate. Calvin Norman’s estimation that the individual soldiers were living at half-strength was a generous appraisal. So long as our spirit was there, we’d always find the strength for one more scrap.

I suppose it is standard when sending men into battle to berate the courage and capability of the enemy. Before we landed, our staff had downgraded the Turks. After all, the Turks spent years getting the bejesus kicked out of them, losing all of their empire in Europe.

Well, something woke Abdul up. Sometimes I believe that most battles are not won or lost by the tacticians or even
the courage of the soldiers. I think it often comes down to a case of who has the most stamina. I’d wager my last quid that every battle in history was fought on two hours’ sleep.

The Turks had stopped us cold, and although they were unable to throw us into the sea, there was a discernible shift in their spirit. We were no closer to Chunuk Bair than the first day we landed.

Word was that the Turks had defeated the Armenians and the Russians in the Caucasus and now had new divisions to shift down to Gallipoli.

There was also talk of a nationalistic rebellion by junior Turkish officers who had infused the troops with a real sense of nation.

The thought of a Turkish victory horrified London. It meant that the British would “lose face” in a part of the world where loss of face was the most catastrophic event in a nation’s history.

So we hung on, not moving forward, not moving backward, not surrendering, and with no hope of winning.

Day after day it all came to roost in Calvin Norman’s surgery. Anzac was slowly being sucked lifeless and bled to death.

At Corps, quandary begat quandary.

A series of tactical blunders and foolish assaults began to smell of desperation on the part of our generals. All during July, Widow’s Gully was filled to capacity.

What keeps a group of men going? Each other, I suppose. We found ways of fending off despair, not letting each other sink. There was some despair but no thought of defeat, although our confidence fell concerning Generals Darlington and Brodhead. As for Godley—he may as well have been a Turk.

I had my own hope. Georgia was my hope. I could allow my mind to think of her again, every moment I was free to think. I could dream of her again, be tantalized by the thought of her.

*  *  *

I worried about Calvin Norman. He had cut off five hundred limbs in July. I feared for his sanity. More than once he blacked out at the operating table. His Ghurkas worshiped him. They’d lay him out in his shelter and call for me and he’d soon ask for rum. I didn’t know what the fuck to do.

I stood outside the surgery netting and watched him when he’d been on his feet for hours. He became more and more irritated, but his hands remained steady and his mind was focused until he hit the wall.

At times I felt he was going crazy before my eyes. He disdained our entreaties to take a rest, his obsession to save lives turning maniacal and his frustration over losing too many men in the surgery destroying his innards.

There had been three bad days in a row at Lone Pine. Although we hadn’t had rain for two weeks, Widow’s Gully had turned muddy from blood.

A shell knocked out the surgery generator so they had to go on with torches and candlelight. I checked Norman. He was saturated with blood and brains and intestines. Rocking, he was like a pendulum on his feet. I went to argue with him, to get him out. He whacked me with his elbow.

I couldn’t handle any more. I left and, after a quick dip, slunk into my bunker. My only connection with reality, as it had been many times lately, was Chester’s voice.

“You can’t live other people’s lives, can you now, Rory?”

“No,” I whimpered. “Sometimes I wonder if God isn’t punishing me for all those married women I fucked.”

“Jesus, have I got to hold a revival meeting for you? Sinners, assemble at Quinn’s Post at 0530. Charge Bloody Angle and atone! Repent, Landers!”

“Ah, cut it out, Chester, it’s no laughing matter.”

“Then why are you smiling…. Look, you can’t keep from laughing…look at me.”

He got me settled down. He always did. Little bugger.

“What would you like? Godley’s pate, Godley’s frog legs, or Godley’s lamb curry?”

“Godley’s rum.”

Dr. Shurhum suddenly appeared in the opening, a calm number until this moment. I knew from his expression.

“We have the doctor outside. Please, may I bring him in?”

Two of the Ghurka operation assistants led a waxen, zombied Calvin Norman in and sat him on the floor. Dr. Shurhum looked uncomfortably at Chester.

“Lieutenant Goodwood can be trusted with this,” I said quickly.

Shurhum ordered the Ghurkas to stand guard outside. He refused a drink and slowly brought himself under control.

“It had to happen,” the little Nepalese said shakily. “He simply locked up, unable to move his hands, his mind shut off, not knowing us. We had to wrestle him down on the floor, tie his hands behind him, as you can see.”

“We’d better turn him in,” I said.

“No!” Shurhum said pointedly. “It will destroy Dr. Norman’s career. We are fortunate that only he and I were together in the surgery without other physicians at the moment.”

“The doctor is completely shut down,” Chester said. “We can’t hide him.”

“No,” Shurhum said, “I have seen this happen to other surgeons. He will recover after rest, but we cannot send him out as insane. Believe me, gentlemen, I know the Army…particularly when it comes to a colonial. He is a great doctor. This cannot happen to him. I studied under him in India.”

“I’ve got the picture, Dr. Shurhum,” I said.

“What the hell can we do?” Chester wondered.

“I brought him to you because I knew your decision would be the proper one. Please…I tried…every night when we tried to sleep he would go over his mistakes…his sleep was one long scream to be able to transfuse blood.”

“I said I have the picture. Please, give me some time to think.”

“What he was doing was beyond any man’s capacity.”

“I know, Dr. Shurhum. Can you…shut up!”

“He is the greatest surgeon in the Army. He is my teacher. He is my father.”

“Anyone we can trust at Corps?” I asked. “What about Colonel Markham?”

“Markham is a prick,” Chester said. “I don’t see how we can cover this up.”

Message, message, I need a message. Goddamnit, think, Rory…wait a minute…oh, you clever lad…think, think, there we go…

“I can hear you thinking, Rory,” Chester said.

I looked at Norman. He was beyond and away from us all, oblivious.

“We’re going to perform a little surgery on the doctor. Here’s the program,” I said. “He is hit by shrapnel on the beach. I rush him here and send for Dr. Shurhum. Dr. Shurhum certifies that Norman must be evacuated and he’s out of here on the first boat in the morning.”

“But when he arrives in Alexandria and they find no wound?”

“He’s going to have one. You’re going to put it on him right now.”

“Me? How?”

“Cut him, then stitch him up. One across the forehead, one on the side, I don’t know. Wrap his head up in bandages. Stick his arm in a sling…I don’t know. Do it, goddamnit, and we’ll put him in the first boat out in the morning.”

“Look at him. He has no stamina to survive!” Shurhum cried.

“Do it, asshole! And keep him unconscious until the boat pulls out. Wait! Send one of the orderlies with him. We’ll give him a wound, too. Do it!”

Shurhum nodded in accord and snapped an order to one of the Ghurkas outside. He returned in a few moments with the necessary surgical equipment.

I’ve got to say the rest of it went rather well. We put a neat cut on his cheek, like a German dueling scar, and Shurhum opened and closed a grand-looking hole in Norman’s side,
although it was hard to pull flesh away from his bones to make the cut. When we finished bandaging him up he looked like he had taken a direct hit from Farting Ferdinand.

Shurhum wrote a report citing the head wound and “a terrible loss of blood.” I put on an addendum taking personal responsibility for the evacuation in lieu of going through regular channels, the norm for a ranking officer.

Poor bastard Shurhum had to return to the surgery.

I sat with Calvin Norman through the night, breaking into a sort of laughter from time to time at the paradox of it all. Two months ago I was a ha’penny away from murdering him.

Can you imagine?

Chunuk Bair

Major Christopher Hubble was happier than a hog wallowing in a ton of tailings. Oh, was the pommy boy in his element! He commanded a mixed bag of troops: a company of Aucklands, a company of Wellingtons, a company of Maoris, a battery of Sikh howitzers, six machine guns, heavy weapons platoon, and the pride of the battalion, Reconn A, a platoon of Canterbury Scouts commanded by his brother, Jeremy. The twelve hundred men of this reinforced battalion were known as the Kiwi All-Blacks in honor of our world championship rugby squad.

The Kiwis held the front line from the Apex to Rhododendron Spur about a half-mile beyond Quinn’s on the other side of the Ravine. Across the Ravine was the Chunuk Bair Plateau, the illusive pot of gold of the entire campaign.

Between the Kiwi All-Blacks’ line and Chunuk Bair, the Ravine lay several hundred feet below and several miles long, creating an impenetrable barrier to our prize of war.

Jeremy Hubble took command of Reconn A, fifty Canterbury Scouts with the most vital of missions. Each night and some days, part or all of Reconn A slipped into the Ravine, partly to contest its possession but mainly to look for some sort of hole or path up to Chunuk Bair Plateau.

The Canterbury Scouts were all South Islanders, like myself, born and raised in hill country. In actual fact, the terrain between the Apex and Chunuk Bair was so much like New Zealand you could barely tell one from the other, except that it was green back there and brown up here.

With Calvin Norman safely gone, Chester and Modi figured they could manage without me. Once more I went around Major General Godley, directly to Brodhead, requesting a transfer to the Kiwi All-Blacks.

“I see that Colonel Malone and Major Hubble have both countersigned this request, Landers. There is a chain of command here, you know. You chaps have been running your own private war ever since Egypt.”

I put on my most sincere face, which Brodhead recognized as that of a confidence man.

“Well, you see, sir,” I said, “if you live in hill country you come to realize that you can always find a hole to slip through. The Ravine has a thousand twists and turns in it through rising and valley ground. After all, sir, I did manage to plot out the trail maps.”

“And you have a fanciful notion you’re going to locate a back door to Chunuk Bair Plateau.”

“If it’s to be found, we’ll find it.”

“You’re such a liar, I’d swear you were Irish,” Brodhead said, approving my transfer. I took the paper with mixed emotions, never having heard that kind of remark from him.

Apparently I was just what jeremy needed. Reconn A needed another officer, a trail man, like myself. We split the platoon in half, making a Reconn B unit and rotated leading patrols into the Ravine.

I spotted a clunky sort of lad, Lance Corporal Willumsen, who turned from human to vampire by night. Willumsen could see better in the dark than in daylight. I kept him on my right wing all the time.

The Turks weren’t too frisky in the Ravine during the
day. They didn’t have to be. They had two positions that covered the Ravine floor—Beauchop Hill and the Farm.

By night, however, the Turk had to send in patrols to ward off sneak attacks by ourselves into the foothills of Chunuk Bair.

Willumsen was a fairly new replacement, not yet given to the “Gallipoli gallops” and other infirmities…he was healthy and with a brick-load of strength. We worked his as off. Jeremy would take him into the Ravine one night and me, the next. Each time in, old snake eyes would wiggle his way closer to the bottom of the plateau.

At the end of a week, Willumsen, myself, and fifteen men from Reconn B had settled at the bottom of a steep hill that turned to a cliff directly under Chunuk Bair.

Oh Ma, do we do or do we don’t!

“We’ll go up, just a few yards at a time,” I said into his ear. “If we hear any activity, freeze. We do not want to engage them. Got it?”

His idea of slow and steady and my idea of slow and steady were not at all the same. He scampered up like a jack rabbit. Jesus now…I had no choice but to try to stay in his footsteps….

Just like that!

We were hauling each other up like Alpine climbers. Suddenly, out of the sheer crumbling dirt and lying there in the tall brown grass—Jesus, Mary, Mother of God…we were on Chunuk Bair!

Willumsen slithered his slimy best so a mongoose would not find him and I kept watching his heel and tried to stay on it. We went in a hell of a-ways, maybe twenty-five yards, and the field opened.

The light was right fair. There were no visible fortifications such as the Turks had at the Chessboard, Bloody Angle, and the Nek, which made Quinn’s Post so inhospitable. Nor was there the carnage of battle.

It was bloody simple. So long as the Turks had an impenetrable moat, the Ravine, protecting the plateau,
they didn’t have to keep much of a force on top and expose them to a pounding from the naval guns.

Let’s get the hell out of here!

Next morning at Joshua Malone’s bunker, the Major, Jeremy, and I watched as Willumsen’s dirty fingernail traced a route through the Ravine to the spot he and I had gone up on the plateau.

“God,” Malone whispered, “this is the top of the milk. What’s your name, son?”

“Lance Corporal Willumsen, sir.”

“You’re not going to sell any secrets to the Turks, are you now?”

“Are you shitting me, Colonel?”

“Willumsen, you are now on a ‘need to know’ clearance. Lads, are we going to be able to take the Kiwi All-Black Battalion through the Ravine at night without detection?”

“The Turks don’t like the Ravine at night,” Chris said.

“I agree,” Jeremy added. “Every time we engage them they pull out. I think they patrol the Ravine as a matter of routine.”

“Problem as I see it,” Chris said, “the Turks are watching the Apex down to Rhododendron Spur very closely.”

“But suppose,” Colonel Malone went on, “you withdraw Kiwi from the line at dark and are replaced, then Kiwi moves behind our own lines north, past Beauchop Hill. Keep moving up to Australia Valley and then come down the Ravine on the second night to the base of Chunuk Bair to attack on the third morning.”

“That’s a long walk with a thousand men without being seen,” Chris said.

“The question we have to ask Lance Corporal Willumsen is whether or not he can lead us down the Ravine in the dark, and I’ve got to tell you, the climb up to Chunuk is a man-killer,” I said.

“Just why are we going to try something like this, sir?”
Jeremy asked. “We know the Turks keep several divisions of reserves behind Chunuk Bair.”

Colonel Joshua Malone eyeballed us. “Grab your girdles, lads. In five days the British are landing a corps of four divisions at Suvla Bay.”

“Four divisions!”

“About time!”

“Glory!”

“My Gawd!”

“I see that you heard me,” Malone said, going back to the map and pointing to Suvla Bay, a few miles up the coast onto gently rising land leading up to a semicircle ring of ridges.

“The Turks do not keep much on Ridge 269, because there’s been no need to, and their reserves are below. So…the Suvla Corps lands, pushes quickly up to 269, while we launch a surprise assault on Chunuk Bair. Suvla Corps then connects with our left flank. Then, let the bloody Turks try to throw us off.”

We studied Suvla Bay with its soft rise and salt lake to the easy height of Ridge 269.

“Suvla Bay,” Malone said, thinking aloud, “is where the fuck we should have landed in the first place.”

Our excitement sent us shivering with hope. If we could nail the Turks on this one, it would have all been worth it. The lot of us, including Lance Corporal Willumsen, went down to Corps where he detailed the prospective long march of the Kiwi All-Blacks to General Brodhead.

The final plan was so simple that it would be difficult for even the general staff to fuck up.

We’d do our night crawl down the Ravine to the foot of Chunuk Bair, gather the Kiwi All-Blacks at the base of the plateau, and wait.

Under dark, the ships of the Suvla Bay Corps would get into place and anchor.

At 0230 the Navy would hit the entire Turkish line including the Chunuk Bair Plateau. Whatever Turkish troops were up there were bound to drop behind the plateau until the shelling stopped. However, we would be climbing up at that point to beat them to the plateau at dawn.

At dawn, our entire line would attack. Aussies in the south would make their main attacks at the German Officers’ Trench and across a narrow ridge called the Nek. These were diversionary attacks to pin down a large Turkish force and draw Turkish reserves to them.

The British Tenth, Eleventh, Fifty-third, and Fifty-fourth divisions, known as the Suvla Corps, would land
unopposed
at Suvla Bay and
immediately
push a mile or two inland and capture Ridge 269.

At the same time, the Kiwi All-Blacks would occupy Chunuk Bair Plateau, and Kiwi and the Suvla Bay Corps would connect lines.

Colonel Malone would then release several brigades of New Zealanders to cross the Ravine and reinforce us atop Chunuk Bair.

The Aussie would link up with our flank from the south.

We’d dig in by night.

On the second day, the Turks would counterattack, but troops from the Suvla Corps would continue to land and reinforce our lines.

We left Corps feeling exalted. It was your basic bread-and-butter plan. I was wondering whether or not we had enough stamina, guts, vinegar, and what have you to make the march, the climb, and then still be able to throw back the Turks.

Well, we’d soon find out.

No one knew the back of our lines better than my good self, so I led Reconn B down behind Rhododendron Spur. Colonel Malone kept Lance Corporal Willumsen alongside him as though he were a St. Christopher medal.

Although we should be out of sight of Turkish eyes, we traversed friendly terrain behind the lines with great caution. If we met an enemy patrol, Reconn B was to chase them off before they could get a look at the entire battalion. We played it tight, using this time to tape up anything rattling on the web belts and practice speaking through hand signals and semaphore. Reconn B moved a few yards at a time from safe point to safe point. Within an hour or two, it became like a dance. I was at the head of the line for this part of the journey….

By afternoon you couldn’t hear a sound. I watched at every stop to see that we weren’t giving off telltale dust. Nothing. Lovely…lovely.

At dark we stopped briefly under Beauchop Hill where a store of water had been laid in. It was brought down to us and we refilled our canteens and kept moving.

I held up the line! Fucking Turks were creeping down a dry river bed…God, they could wake up a dead man…I called for us to lay low and only fire after I gave the first shot…and I didn’t give the first shot until they were close enough to eat our lunch…

They never knew what hit them. We crept from body to body making certain they were dead. It had to be done by bayonet so as not to make any further noise.

I went back to Malone and suggested we hold up the line for forty minutes. Sometimes the Turks doubled up on their patrols, with the second one larger than the first. Nothing came.

We moved out, still in good time.

The colors of dawn found the Kiwi All-Blacks strung out on the banks of a dry river bed called Australia Valley. We were still behind our own lines but very observable.

Being a dry gulch, the river bed had good high brush on either side. The officers went up and down the line adjusting the men so we would have the day in cover and shade.

I gave Malone the best of the cover for his headquarters,
a sort of temple of five boulders that had probably rolled down the hill a million years ago. He was an inspiring sight, indeed. After we made rounds we reported to him that we were satisfied Kiwi could not be seen by the enemy.

How can I say it? He was Wellington New Zealand-Auckland New Zealand-South Island-Milford Sound-Palmerston North….

He was the kind of man, like Uncle Wally, who shook your hand and made you feel his grip and you knew his word was as strong as that grip. He was a man of straightforward values, but he also knew the inside cover of a fine book and the intricacies of battle.

We made one more run-through of the plan. I must have fallen asleep sitting up over the map because the next thing I knew, Jeremy was tapping my shoulder.

Jeez, I’d just gone to sleep and it was turning dark, already. I hefted my canteens and pondered if I could treat myself to a few sips, and did. We chewed on hardened chocolate bars, like pressed wood…supposed to give us energy.

Everything had a good feel to it. Although we were in a different location, it seemed like a normal night on Gallipoli. Farting Ferdinand started the party. Then came Turkish howitzers. Good. They were shooting from a different location than last night. This meant they were occupied during the day moving their guns and hadn’t spotted Kiwi. Except for the brush along the banks, Australia Gully was not particularly sheltered. If they knew we were there, they’d certainly be laying it on us now.

Lance Corporal Willumsen was the hairy man now. He took the point. Jeremy was behind him with half of Reconn A. I followed with the second part of the platoon, Reconn B.

“We’re formed up, Colonel.”

“Don’t let the line get strung out. We assemble at the top of the Ravine.”

Willumsen put on his night eyes as we crept from Anzac lines into Turkish Territory. The Kiwi All-Blacks were glorious. You couldn’t hear voice nor rattle.

Top of the Ravine

Reconn A and B held as the battalion tightened up.

Subaltern Higby brought up the First Platoon of the Auckland Company with an extra pair of machine guns. Our first target was to knock out a crucial Turkish position, an observation post called the Farm that guarded the opening to the Ravine from the western side.

As the raiding party took off, Subaltern Mellencamp brought the Fourth Platoon of the Wellingtons up, had them fix bayonets, and move into the Ravine to seek and destroy any Turkish patrols.